


Together Alone

by DuplexBeGreat



Category: Transformers - All Media Types, Transformers Generation One
Genre: M/M, The Transformers: Till All Are One (IDW)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-30
Updated: 2018-08-30
Packaged: 2019-07-04 16:40:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,998
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15845229
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DuplexBeGreat/pseuds/DuplexBeGreat
Summary: The war is over, and the Autobots and Decepticons are at peace with each other—officially. Two bots, one of each faction, are stranded on a hostile world together, and test the limits of how far that peace really stretches, each learning about the other's view of the war in the process.





	Together Alone

“I don’t believe it,” Highbrow muttered. “Those arrogant slagheads had the stupidity to break the treaty in plain sight!”

The small world beneath them wasn’t particularly impressive, not by any standards the crew of the Autobot craft had ever heard of. Ardenia was a dull pale brown, its surface dotted with mountain ranges and its atmosphere sporting occasional decorative cloud formations, but otherwise lacking in any distinguishable features. Despite its proximity to major trade routes and its temperate conditions, the planet had never been the subject of any kind of colonization attempt—simply put, no one _cared_ about the world. Or, at least, not until massive underground energon deposits had been discovered only a few stellar cycles ago, prompting the immediate establishment of a rudimentary mining facility.

Of course, the Autobot ship itself was far from beautiful—its name a severe misnomer, the _Graceful Glide_ had been used for diplomatic pursuits in the pre-war days, and had been retrofitted into the bare minimum of what could be considered a patrol boat in the war’s aftermath. Its paint job was patchwork, its engines were archaic, and its weapons systems were unstable enough to threaten the _Glide_ itself in addition to whatever hypothetical enemies might be encountered—which was to say, none, not since the beginning of the second Pax Cybertronia.

Not until right this moment, at which the ship’s entire crew—five Autobots—was scrambling to previously-unused battle stations. Most of them found the old routines from the war days sinking right back in, and were only a little surprised and the slightest bit disappointed to realize how natural it felt. The cause of their alarm: A bonafide D-Class P-6 _Worldsweeper_ in orbit over the Ardenian skies. A Decepticon warship.

Hurrying out of the cockpit, Highbrow reached the central passageway just as the first of the crew did: Rook had already begun descending the ladder that led to the aft laser turret.

“No,” panted Highbrow. “We’re not to use force unless necessary. We’re boarding.”

The large white bot froze in mid-climb and stared at him. “Are you insane? They’re ‘Cons in full violation of the treaty—”

“On a Decepticon mining world,” Highbrow grunted. “They have the right to be here. They just can’t fly that damn Symbol Ship. Capital ships aren’t authorized for use this far out from Cybertron.”

Rook’s optics narrowed. “No one’s going to make me ride a barely-functional rustbucket straight at a slagging _Worldsweeper_ without even fighting back.”

“Your _captain_ is.” Highbrow snarled. “Take another step down that ladder and you’re relieved of duty.”

For a moment, Rook didn’t move, his grip tensing on the ladder’s rongs. Then he snorted and climbed back up to the main deck. “Fine. Guess we’re all going to die, then.”

“We have shields,” Highbrow dismissed him. “We’ll be fine.”

 

 

Perhaps out of sheer incredulity, the _Graceful Glide_ had nearly crossed the full distance to the ominously hovering Worldsweeper before anyone aboard gave voice to the obvious.

“We’re still at _full shield capacity!_ ” Rook exclaimed. “Why aren’t they firing?!”

“Because they’re _complying_ ,” Highbrow explained, more than a hint of exasperation in his voice. “They know they’re not supposed to be out here in that ship, and they’re trying not to make things worse for themselves.”

“When they could just vaporize us?” Rook huffed.

“Clearly, they want to keep to the truce,” said Highbrow. “Just as we do.”

“Right.” Rook rolled his eyes. “Peace-loving Decepticons. Sure.”

 

 

They docked at the main entry point on the Worldsweeper’s left side, still completely unopposed… and ungreeted. All attempts at hailing the Decepticon craft had gone unanswered.

“We’re going in,” Highbrow decided. “All of us. Don’t be too trigger-happy… but keep your optics open.”

Cautiously, the five Autobots exited the _Glide_ ’s docking tube and stepped into the Worldsweeper’s airlock. The inner door irised open… to reveal an dimly-lit empty corridor. There wasn’t a hint of movement in the ship beyond, though a little ways off the passage could be observed to break into two.

Highbrow seemed to be mulling something over as the rest of the team waited for orders. Finally, he spoke. “Alright. We’ll split up. Crosshairs and Waverider, you’ll take the left corridor. Chainclaw, you’re with me on the right one. Rook… guard the ship.”

“What?!” Rook spluttered. “Have you lost it? I’ve been itching for a fight this whole time!”

“And that’s why you’re _not_ getting any closer to the ‘Cons,” Highbrow growled. “I’m not interested in having to explain why someone on my watch opened hostilities despite repeated evidence that the Decepticons were committed to non-aggression.”

He motioned with his arm for the rest of the squad to move out. They quickly turned and headed off in their assigned directions, Waverider shooting an apologetic glance back at the incredulous Rook.

Groaning, Rook leaned into a nearby alcove in the wall and closed his eyes. _Unbelievable_. Stuck on _guard duty_. This ship was the first interesting thing that had happened to the crew of the _Glide_ in the deca-cycles since they’d left Cybertron, and he was missing out on all of it.

_Cr-creak_.

The noise jolted him out of his misery. Suddenly alert, he readied his hydraulic claw, hoping he hadn’t just imagined the sound. Something was _happening_.

A few nanocycles passed with agonizing slowness, and then a hatch opened in the floor in the center of the split corridor down which the rest of the Autobots had vanished. From within the subsurface compartment emerged another Cybertronian, its features obscured by the shadowy surroundings— _a Decepticon_.

Rook could hardly believe his luck. The action had come to _him_. Of course, he wasn’t supposed to “open hostilities”, but Highbrow had ordered him to guard the ship, hadn’t he? And this Decepticon was definitely being far too sneaky to be up to any good. The ship wasn’t safe as long as he was around.

The ‘Con closed the hatch he had emerged from painstakingly slowly, then began to carefully creep down the airlock towards the _Glide_ ’s docking tube.

Was he going to _steal_ the ship?

Rook realized that the other bot had no idea he was there—the poor lighting and the shadows of the alcove had completely obscured him. Well, alright, then. A sneak attack couldn’t hurt his chances.

He waited until the Decepticon had nearly reached the docking tube, then charged, his hydraulic claw extended. The other figure turned, startled. Before he could react, Rook had fired the claw’s arm. His aim was true: the claw snagged around the Decepticon’s left wrist.

The ‘Con gave a shout of anger and tugged at the claw with his other hand, trying to yank it off. Rook smirked as the claw held firm and began reeling the chain in, dragging the Decepticon towards him. It wouldn’t be long before the other bot was within his—

_Pow!_ The Decepticon had given up fighting the claw’s pull and had allowed it to bring him within reach of Rook, at which point he simply punched the Autobot full-on in the face. Only stunned for a moment, Rook quickly found his excitement giving way to anger.

_Fine. He wants to do it like that?_

Grabbing the ‘Con by both shoulders, Rook shoved him towards the wall in which the docking tube was set, then shoulder-rammed him into the wall with all his might once, twice, three times. _That should do it._ The ‘Con would be close to unconscious now, even if not all the way out yet.

_CR-CREAK_.

This time, the sound was much louder than a small floor hatch opening up, and didn’t sound like a hinge that needed oiling as much as it did… crumpling metal.

Oh, slag.

The _Graceful Glide_ ’s docking tube, as old and substandard as the rest of the vessel, had become dislodged by the jolts to the wall it was set in. As Rook watched, horrified, the tube trembled before, impossibly, coming loose. Slipped of its bearings in the Worldsweeper’s hull, it dipped just below the opening in the wall, allowing the vacuum of space to become visible through the crescent-shaped sliver now opened in the upper half of the hole.

The effect was immediate. The void opened in the tube’s absence now became hungry, sucking the atmosphere out of the airlock chamber—and everything else in it—as it attempted to equalize the pressure difference between the two environments. As the pressurizing gases were suctioned at a rapid rate through the small opening, their force pressed downward on the dislodged docking tube, widening the gap more and more until, finally, the tube had come loose from the chamber entirely.

Still attached to the Decepticon by the claw on his right arm, Rook found himself awkwardly dragged out into the yawning void along with his captive, the two of them tumbling back and forth. As they reached the surface of the _Graceful Glide_ , Rook desperately tried to grab for some kind of purchase on the hull, but found none: the only thing well-maintained about the craft was it smooth outer appearance.

Rook realized with alarm that it wasn’t just the pressure difference between the Worldsweeper and the space beyond that was dragging at himself and the Decepticon. The ships were in orbit around Ardenia; the planet’s gravity was just strong enough at this distance for the two bots to fall all the way to its surface.

Before he could fully come to terms with this idea, or even realize that it would be prudent to release his claw’s grasp on the Decepticon, Rook’s head collided with the _Graceful Glide_ ’s primary engine, and his vision turned to black.

 

* * *

 

 

Rook’s servos groaned with protest as he forced himself to sit upright, what felt like several stellar cycles later. Even with his optical circuits still in the process of rebooting, he could tell how badly he was damaged—the pain was enough of an indicator. There were small abrasions running pretty much the entire length of his body, and his left arm had been partially crushed.

Finally able to see again, he was startled at the brightness of his immediate surroundings. This light wasn’t the poorly-illuminated airlock of the Worldsweeper, or even the soft ambience of the _Graceful Glide_. It was the searing radiance of _real_ light, pouring down incessantly from above without caring who it blinded. Under such harshness, Rook could easily make out his environment: a small pile of reddish-brown rubble, one of many such outcroppings in an endless plain of similar features. In the distance, on most sides, some shapes that were probably mountains.

He was on Ardenia.

He had _fallen_ onto Ardenia, after the scuffle on the World—

_Where was the Decepticon?_ On the right edge of his vision, something moved. He tensed, raising his right arm, claw at the ready—

“Oh, for the love of Primus, put that piece of scrap down! It was hard enough yanking it off my arm the first time!”

From behind another, slightly larger pile of stones, the speaker stepped fully into view. He was a Cybertronian of average build, mostly deep brown in hue, the main exception being his decidedly purple torso. Behind his head (which sported a pair of lavender visored eyes and an impressive scowl) was mounted a sizeable nosecone, which, combined with the small wingtips protruding off the sides of his legs, indicated he was a standard jetformer.

A purple jet. Rook didn’t need to look at the sigil emblazoned on the bot’s left breastplate to confirm which faction he belonged to.

“Are you deaf, Autobot? I told you to put it down, not memorize every facet of my chassis.” Had he been staring? Slag.

With as much force as he could muster, Rook flung himself out of his sitting position, running full-out at the Decepticon with a battle yell. He froze at the sight of a blaster that had suddenly appeared in the other’s grip, short and black with a scope on top.

“It’s on ionic settings—scrambles your circuits. I’m not asking again.”

With a scowl to match the one on his opponent’s face, Rook forced himself to lower his arms and stow the grappling claw in its holster on his right shoulder.

“Primus, you’re trigger-happy,” muttered the Decepticon. “Can I trust that you won’t raise that thing again—or your fists—the moment I put this away?”  
Confused, Rook nodded slowly. The ‘Con was putting the blaster _away?_

Tucking the weapon into a notch on the side of what Rook realized was a large primary wing—for the jet form—the Decepticon sighed, then, after a moment, spoke again, this time with a more matter-of-fact tone. “Alright. We’re pretty much smack-dab in the middle of nothing. The only real settlement here is the primary mining hub, which is a little under a kiloklik from where we are. I’d say that makes for maybe seven standard solar cycles of walking—six if we’re lucky. I don’t know exactly how rough the terrain is from here to there, so—”

“What the _hell_ are you talking about?” Rook interrupted. “I’m not going anywhere with _you_.”

The ‘Con stared at him. “Yes, you are, if you want to get off this planet. That’s not happening unless you come with me.”

“And then what—I end up in some secret lab on a planet the Autobots don’t know about, taken apart piece by piece until I wish I’d never been constructed? No thanks. I’d rather offline myself right here.”

Though the other bot’s eyes were difficult to read behind the visor, Rook got the sense that they were narrowing. “ _Secret lab?_ Are you joking? I’m trying to help you _survive_ , tinhead.”

Rook rolled his eyes. “Right. I’m sure my well-being is of utmost importance to you.”

“It’s becoming less appealing by the nanocycle,” the Decepticon said, “But I’d rather not have shredded my alt-mode for nothing.” He indicated the left side of his body as he said this.

Looking more closely at the visible alt-mode parts on the Decepticon’s back, Rook realized that the left wing was, in fact, badly mangled, and the Decepticon’s body bore the same general damage that his own did.

“Hold up,” said Rook. “What happened? How did we get here? Why do we both look like we’ve been through a recycling plant?”

The Decepticon groaned. “For the love of god. We _crashed_ , bolt-brain. We were on a ship, in space, and then we _fell off the ship_.”

“All the way to the ground from orbit?” Rook frowned. “No way. I wouldn’t just have a broken arm. We’d be dead.”

“ _You’d_ be dead, six-wheels. Once I pried off that stupid claw, I changed modes and tried to slow your fall. Course, I couldn’t exactly carry you, so we still took a pretty heavy beating from the ground, but—”

“Okay, okay, stop!” Rook exclaimed. “You’re telling me that you—purple torso, jet alt-mode, got the brand and everything—you got yourself banged up just to save me, when you could’ve just flown out of the fall?”

“What was I supposed to do?” the Decepticon said, slowly, as if he was speaking to a freshly-constructed bot. “Let you die?”

“Well, no, but—” Rook spluttered. “You’re a slagging _Decepticon_! Why in the world—”

“Peace. Treaty.” the ‘Con said, his annoyance clearly growing. “We don’t shoot each other. We don’t stand by and let other Cybertronians get scrapped just because they don’t have the same face on their badge. Where have _you_ been the last few stellar cycles?”

“Peace treaty my tailpipe!” exclaimed Rook, clenching his fists. “You guys were flying a _Worldsweeper_ up there! Don’t pretend you give a damn about the treaty when you’re breaking it every moment you’re on this planet! And even if you didn’t—”

“That’s not the point,” interrupted the ‘Con. “I’m not the one calling the shots. The ship isn’t mine, and it’s not a warship, anyway, not anymore. It’s been stripped for use as a bulk transport. You know. For energon. I was just on guard duty when you and your friends decided to _invade_. You were the one who thought ‘grapple first, ask questions later’ was a good idea. Nearly got both of us killed. And _you’re welcome_ , by the way,” he added.

Rook wasn’t quite sure how to react. “... Fine. Thanks, I guess,” he muttered. Then, refusing to back down, he continued, “So now I’m supposed to apologize for helping to investigate a law-breaking Decepticon flagship?”

“It’s not really any of my business what you choose to say,” snapped the Decepticon. “If you want to keep falling out of airlocks because you think anyone wearing purple is your enemy, that’s not my problem.” He paused for a moment, visibly making an effort to calm himself. “Whatever. I assume you don’t want to rust to death out here, so can we get moving?”

“What’s the rush?” Rook said, his voice not entirely free of lingering traces of resentment. “Are you the galaxy’s slowest jet, or something?”

“I’m not the galaxy’s _anything_ jet, at the moment,” grumbled the Decepticon. “Not with only half a wing left. And I wouldn’t be surprised if your… _whatever_ you turn into’s wheels are in just as sorry a state.”

Gingerly testing his shoulders, Rook realized the Decepticon was right. If he converted to his alt-mode while his arm was still this badly damaged, the process could injure him even further, and there was no guarantee his APC form would even manage to roll over this rough terrain, not with the damage he’d already sustained. He wouldn’t be doing anything but walking until he got some repairs.

“Oh, that’s just prime,” he groaned.

The Decepticon motioned with both hands towards a mountain range off in the distance. “Any moment now, your highness.” He turned and started walking in the direction he had indicated.

“Shut up,” Rook muttered. Sighing, he began to follow the ‘Con, moving a bit more quickly so as to catch up. Falling into stride alongside the Decepticon, a thought occurred to him. “... I’m Rook.”

The other didn’t respond for a few nanocycles. “Blast Off.”

 

* * *

 

 

They’d been steadily covering ground for the better part of a solar cycle. The mountains in the distance grew closer, but the landscape seemed uniform no matter how far they travelled: barren wastes, with occasional sprouts of rock. While the temperature wasn’t extreme—this was no sweltering desert world—the monotony of the trek was, in a way, worse than any potential hazards.

The terrain wasn’t the only thing that remained unchanging. Though Rook knew that his Decepticon companion considered there to be no remaining hostilities between their factions, Rook’s own opinion of the other bot hadn’t grown any more favorable. He was an ally of convenience, but nothing. The galaxy-wide ceasefire was all well and good, but at the end of the solar cycle Blast Off was still a Decepticon, and he, Rook, was still an Autobot. Their lives were entirely incompatible. Once their journey to the mining base had been finished, Rook saw no reason for them to ever meet again—unless, of course, the war were to re-erupt. No one could guarantee that _wouldn’t_ happen, after all.

And for all that Blast Off might profess to be a simple order-taker, not involved in whatever nefarious plans the Decepticon leadership were cooking up—both then and now—Rook knew better. He’d heard the name “Blast Off” before. It had taken him a few megacycles to place it, but then—yeah. He was right. He couldn’t be sure, after all, since bots with the same name did exist, but something inside him knew he was right. Blast Off had been a member of the Combaticons, a Decepticon combiner team and elite strike force. They weren’t giving the orders, sure, but if there was high-casualty work to be done, the Combaticons were the ones doing it. Blast Off’s hands, Rook was sure, were stained with the internal fluids of dozens of Autobots.

Whether the Decepticon was aware that Rook had guessed his identity, Rook didn’t care. Whatever the reason, Blast Off had kept conversation to a minimum, only occasionally throwing out a remark about the progress they’d made towards the base, or idly pointing out an interesting rock formation. That was exactly what Rook wanted—he had no interest in conversing with a murderer.

But at some point, the silence just became too much.

“It doesn’t add up,” Rook snapped, throwing his words out carelessly as the pair clambered over yet another pile of reddish-brown stones. “There’s just no way. Someone who spends millions of stellar cycles mercilessly killing other bots—someone who took orders from a guy named _Onslaught_ —you can’t seriously expect me to believe you just decided one solar cycle that peace was your new favorite word. It’s not possible.”

Blast Off paused mid-climb and gave him a curious look. “Do you actually want me to answer that?”

Rook waited until they’d reached the other side of the rocks to answer. “Sure. Why the hell not? It’s not like I’ll believe whatever you say, but you might as well try.”

The Decepticon shrugged. “Okay. If you say so.”

“I guess it was too much to hope for that you wouldn’t recognize my name,” he started, his voice casual. “None of the combiner teams were exactly obscure, and mine was… well, you know. ‘Infamous’ wouldn’t be wrong. And, yeah, Onslaught was our boss. _My_ boss. And you probably know that his name was a pretty apt description of how he led. We didn’t, uh… we didn’t usually take prisoners. He didn’t, I didn’t. It was how things worked.”

Blast Off paused for a moment. “I’d be lying if I said I had regrets when we did all those things. The scorched-earth tactics, the destabilizing strikes, the brutality of it all… it was a part of me. For sure. I was a Combaticon through-and-through, and more than that, I was a Decepticon. I still am. I believed in the Decepticon cause, and I always will. Equality, you know? It’s a big word. It means something. It was worth fighting for. But, I guess… when Galvatron went down like that… when we learned that Soundwave had helped Optimus Prime do it... it changed things. And then, not long after that, the treaty came up, and all of a sudden we just… weren’t at war anymore. And some of us started to realize, I don’t know, that Megatron or Galvatron or whoever he really was never fully meant what he said about equality or liberation or any of that.” He shrugged. “I used to think the war would get us what we wanted, what we _deserved_. But when you start to see some people for who they really are… you can’t keep fighting for them when they’ve caused so many deaths already.”

His speech apparently ended, the Decepticon shot a sideways glance at Rook, as if waiting for a reply.

“Is that it?” Rook asked scathingly.  
Blast Off appeared startled. “What?”

“Oh, come on,” Rook rolled his eyes. “There’s no way I can believe that load of refuse. You liked fighting, and then one solar cycle you woke up and realized Galvatron was a bad guy? Wow. What a _stunning_ revelation.”

“I wouldn’t expect an Autobot to understand,” Blast Off growled back. “You’re all so enamored with Optimus Prime that he could stand in the middle of Iacon main street and rip someone’s face off without losing a single soldier.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Rook snapped. “We look up to Optimus because that’s the kind of thing he’d _never_ do. He’s not a murderer pretending to believe in some made-up cause. He _cares_ about the bots that follow him. He’s never lied to us, or killed people just for fun, or—or made _us_ do things that were against our moral code!”

Blast Off let out a low whistle. “Wow. That’s nice.”

“What?”

“You actually believe all that?”

“Of course!” Rook exclaimed. “He’s _Optimus Prime!_ ”

“No one’s that spotless. Not you, not me, and _definitely_ not Optimus slagging Prime,” the Decepticon said. “And, item the second, I’m not the one who thought ‘tackle out an airlock first, ask questions later’ was a good idea, so as far as representing our factions goes—”

“Okay, stop! Just fragging _stop_ with the holier-than-thou act!” Rook exploded. “You’re a goddamn _Combaticon!_ So I got a little trigger-happy with my fist—big whoop! You’ve killed _hundreds_ of bots!”

Blast Off stared back at him. “And you haven’t?”

“Never,” Rook said unflinchingly. “And I don’t plan on changing that any time soon.”

Another whistle. “Well, then. Spotless. So how’d that happen?”

“What?” Rook asked. “How’d what…?”

“Well, either you’ve never been on a battlefield, or you’re an utter moron,” said Blast Off. “Or you’d know that no soldier still living has _zero_ kills. Stuff happens in a battle that no one gets to control, especially fatality rates. And it’s not exactly hard to notice that you don’t have a gun. So… were you a tech? Communications officer? What’s your story?”

Rook didn’t miss a beat. “Special ops, if you have to know. My designated function was ‘retrieval expert and tactical advisor.’” He paused for a moment, then added, “I was constructed pretty late in the war. Top marks at the Cybertronian Military Academy. Pinpoint accuracy, tactical analysis, threat assessment—you name it, I did it. Me and Alpha Bravo both. High command wanted more than just another couple of MTOs—we were supposed to give them a new edge. And… well, we did. Alpha got drafted into the Aerialbots faster than anyone expected, and I was lined up to join the Protectobots not much later.” Another pause. “So yeah, I might not’ve done much shooting in the field, but I’ve done my fair share to contribute—”

“Okay, okay, I got it,” said Blast Off, holding his hands up. “You were some kind of strategic genius, cool.” He shrugged. “If knowing you never held a blaster helps your conscience, that’s great. But just because you didn’t pull any triggers doesn’t mean you didn’t help get other bots killed. That’s how war works. Your job—no matter what it is—helped your bosses kill people like me.” He shot a glance at Rook. “And from what I’ve seen? I think if you _did_ have a blaster on you, I’d already be dead. And so would a lot of other ‘Cons who happened to get in the way of a Protectobot mission.”

Rook ignored him and kept walking.

 

* * *

 

 

Ardenia’s night had fallen on their trek for the fifth time. Over the last cycle or so of the planet’s orbit, Rook had begun to notice a gradual increase in the rockiness of the surrounding region. Where once the rust-colored mineral deposits had been sporadic, appearing only in pockets every so often, now the Autobot and his strange bedfellow were forced to traverse miniature slopes and peaks of the ore nearly all the time. The mountain range which they had sighted on the first solar cycle had been surpassed with some amount of difficulty, but the one that now confronted them was much more daunting. Once they had crossed it, Blast Off promised, the Decepticon mining camp would be only a few more megacycles away.

Soon Rook would be free of the planet, of Blast Off, of the entire affair.

He wasn’t dreading the moment in the slightest. While the Decepticon had tried to make further conversation more than a few times during the course of their journey, he hadn’t had much of substance to offer. He’d refrained from bringing up the subject of their respective wartime facilities again, but Rook could sense the issue lurking, unspoken, just behind the other bot’s vocal synthesizer. For reasons Rook couldn’t understand, Blast Off _wanted_ to debate the relative morality of the two factions, the responsibility that each bot had played in the war, the problem of learning to coexist in a post-war society.

And Rook still found that he wanted none of it. His conscience had been, and still was, perfectly clear. Most Decepticons, he reflected, probably didn’t even care about the countless Autobots that they had killed during the war, whether by cannon or by sword or by fist. Why in Primus’s name did he have to end up stranded with the _one_ of them that seemed determined to open wounds everyone else had long since papered over?

So he either rebuffed or quietly shut down the jet-bot’s attempts at parlay, and trodded on steadily through each day and each night.

But Blast Off was nothing if not persistent, and was now casually trying to open yet another discourse. “You know, you should try looking up Soundwave sometime. I think you’d be surprised by what he did, and more surprised by what he _didn’t_ do.”

Rook whirled on the brown-hued bot, half-certain that he’d heard the Decepticon try to start this exact conversation only a few megacycles earlier. “For the love of—I don’t give a flying scrap about some Decepticon head honcho! Why is it so hard for you to understand that I just _don’t_ care about whatever screwed-up reasons your pals had for joining the ‘Cons?”

Blast Off seemed amused. “I just think you would find it interesting how he viewed the lives of others. Soundwave always believed more strongly than any other Decepticon that all lives were equal—but he always seemed like he didn’t value _life_ itself very much. He’d gladly sacrifice any Autobot, Decepticon, or neutral in the name of the cause. Dude wasn’t like Shockwave—he definitely _cared_ about life. He just didn’t let it get in the way of whatever Megatron—or Scorponok, or Ratbat, or whatever other leader-of-the-decacycle he was following—ordered.” The smile disappeared from his face. “Maybe if he’d actually fought for what he claimed to believe in, instead of what they made him _think_ was right, a hell of a lot of people might be better off right now.”

Rook stared at him, seriously trying to figure out why Blast Off seemed incapable of taking a hint. “Primus. Was I supposed to learn a lesson from that? Are you _trying_ to be as cryptic as possi—”

_VOOM!_

His tirade against the Decepticon abrupted, Rook found himself knocked onto his rear chassis as the ground underneath him exploded with movement, sending clouds of reddish dust into the air. A massive shape, bulky and elongated, was emerging from the newly-created chasm in the earth, mineral residue streaming off its body as it rose. Through the haze, Rook could faintly make out the silhouette of Blast Off, his blaster—presumably switched out of ionic disruption mode—unslung from its port on his back and firing repeated bursts at the unknown mass. The attack seemed to have little effect against the intruder’s outer surface.

“ _GARAAAAAHHHH!_ ”

The dust clouds clearing as the new arrival finished its ascension, Rook could clearly see what it was he and Blast Off were facing: An enormous worm-like creature, its front end raised to more than three times the height of the two Cybertronians. Its hide was a mottled mix of various shades of brown and a reddish-orange color not unlike the surrounding ores. Small, curved spikes of what Rook guessed might be bone jutted out from two opposite sides of its cylindrical body, running the full length of the worm from its head to, presumably, its tail, though Rook had no idea how much of the creature was still unseen underground. The head was a nightmarish maw ringed with more of the spikes, with a smaller row of teeth set further inside. It lacked any eyes or other sensory features, seemingly making use solely of its mouth and massive body to survive.

Rook’s amazed stare was quickly shattered by the realization that the worm hadn’t stopped moving for long. Its front end was now plunging downwards, aiming directly for where Rook lay. Cursing, the Autobot rolled to the side, narrowly dodging the creature’s strike as it dove into the ground, its maw devouring the rock with ease and disappearing beneath the surface. What parts of the worm were still visible above ground now shifted and followed the head as, sub-terra, it moved a few mechanometers forward before re-emerging into the air with another screech.

Blast Off came jogging over, extending a servo towards Rook. After a slight hesitation, Rook grabbed it, allow the Decepticon to help him to his feet. The two bots stared cautiously at the worm’s writhing body, backing away as the head swooped towards them once more, diving into the earth and surfacing a third time. Cracks were now forming along the ground, extending outwards in every direction from the many places where the worm had broken the surface.

“What the _hell_ ,” panted Rook, “is that thing? I thought this planet was uninhabited!”

Blast Off shook his head. “Only on the surface. There’s a whole ecosystem underground. Small, unique lifeforms that feed on the minerals, and larger organisms that feed on them.” He gestured towards the creature with his blaster. “That’s a quake worm. Basically exactly what it sounds like. Not much intelligence, no eyesight, but perfectly capable of surviving without either. Its name comes from—”

“From the quakes it makes when it moves around,” Rook growled. “I kinda guessed.” He scanned the nearby rock formations for a moment, then glanced towards the mountain range in the distance. “All right. When I say go, we run like hell.”

“No chance.” Blast Off lifted his blaster again. “Those things move like lightning underground, and it’s already smelled that we’re made of metal. We won’t be able to outrun it.”

“You can’t seriously think killing it’s going to be easier,” Rook said, incredulous. “Your gun can’t even break the skin.”

“Not—” Blast Off said, darting to the side as the quake worm made another pass at him, a brief “ _HRGRAAH!_ ” screeching from it as it did so. A grin lit the Decepticon’s face. “Not exactly. I don’t know about killing it, but we could probably drive it off.”

“How?!” shouted Rook over the din of the worm’s roaring. “How do you expect us to scare something that big away with only your blaster and my claw?”

Blast Off shrugged. “I don’t know!” he yelled, firing another few blasts at the quake worm. “But you’re the Elite Academy of Grandiosity’s pride and joy! The Protectobot strategic genius! You figure something out while I keep the thing occupied, got it?”

Rook’s optics flickered with alarm as his companion ran a short distance away, firing backwards at the worm as he did so. The creature, enraged, let out another shriek before tunneling after him. “Uh—I don’t know if that’s—” Rook stuttered.

Blast Off paid him no attention, continuing to whoop indistinctly at the enormous worm as he dodged its repeated lunges.

Rook anxiously scanned the nearby area for any sort of usefully-shaped rock, or previously unseen tactically-beneficial point to which they could retreat. He came up with nothing. What was more, he realized, the quake worm’s strikes weren’t as random as they seemed—the creature’s protracted body was, slowly but surely, becoming visible above the ground in more and more places as it exposed more of itself with every attack.

_It’s closing us in_ , Rook realized. Soon there would be no open space left in which the two bots could dodge the beast’s strikes. Panic flaring in several of his processors, he called out, nervously, “Blast Off—”

The Decepticon, his expression still unfazed, trotted back over to Rook’s side. “You got something?”

Rook shook his head. “No, that’s not—I don’t think I can—”

A nod. “You need a bit more time, okay.”

“No, no, you’re not listening!” Rook said, struggling to find a way to explain the problem. “This isn’t going to work! It knows exactly what it’s doing, and I don’t—I don’t have any clue what to do, and it’s only a matter of time before it nails us!”

The other bot’s head turned from side to side as he took in the worm’s increased aboveground presence. Optics flashing, he turned back to Rook. “Well, come on, then! You’d better think of something pretty damn fast, or we’re slagged!”

“I can’t—I don’t know!” Rook shouted, peripherally registering that the quake worm had raised its head once again. It was preparing to strike the final sequence of blows, he could tell. In under a cycle they would be devoured by its gaping maw. “It’s pointless,” he whispered. “We’re done for.”

“Are you slagging serious?” Blast Off exclaimed. “Just tell me what the plan is! Even if it’s a long shot, we have to at least _try_ to survive!”

“There isn’t a plan, alright?” The worm was lunging at them now, its mouth stretched wide.

“What the hell do you mean, there isn’t a—”

“I don’t have any clue what to do! _I’ve never been in a fight before, alright?!_ ” The worm was upon them. Rook shut off his optics and waited for the embrace of the creature’s jaws.

_BZAAT!_

It was a few nanocycles before Rook realized he hadn’t been eaten. Cautiously re-activating his optical sensors, he was stunned to see the quake worm’s front end lying motionless on the ground, less than a hic from him and Blast Off. Its jaws were quivering slightly, as if straining to engulf the two Cybertronians that they could sense so tantalizingly close. At Rook’s side, Blast Off was frozen in an attack crouch, his blaster smoking.

“What—how—” Rook stammered.

“We got lucky.” Blast Off’s voice was distant, as if he could hardly believe what had happened himself. “It must have had a vital nerve cluster just inside its mouth. I got one shot in and it just… stopped in its tracks.”

Rook stared at the corpse in disbelief. “It’s… just dead. Just like that.”

“Maybe not dead yet,” replied the Decepticon, still sounding ill at ease. “But it will be soon.” Both of them were silent for a moment, before Blast Off spoke up again. “Okay. Explain.”

“Explain what?” Rook said, nervously, knowing exactly what the other bot was referring to.

Blast Off said nothing, only glaring at him for several infinitely long nanocycles. Finally, when Rook thought the other bot might not press the matter after all, Blast Off exploded, “You’ve _never been in a_ —”

“I know! I know!” Rook shouted, turning away from his companion, unable to face him. “I’ll explain, I promise. Just… I need some time. And… can we get away from that thing?” he asked, gesturing behind him to the quake worm’s corpse.

Slowly nodding, Blast Off re-holstered his blaster and stalked off in the direction of the mountains once more. Rook hurriedly turned to catch up to him, then slowed to match his pace. The two bots walked in silence from the site of the quake worm’s demise.

 

* * *

 

 

Though he knew he’d been allowed more than enough time already, Rook still winced when Blast Off spoke up again, about twenty hics or so later, by which point they had begun to climb the slopes of the mountain pass and the worm’s body was far behind them. “It’s been long enough. I need to know what you meant.”

“I… I meant exactly what I said,” said Rook, realizing he wasn’t prepared to have this conversation at all, let alone with a Decepticon. “I’ve never been in a fight.”

“How’s that slagging _possible?!_ ” exclaimed Blast Off. “The Protectobots weren’t exactly a black ops squad, but they were still on the front lines! You told me you were their tactical mech! You can’t seriously expect me to believe you did all that without ever coming within range of a firefight!”

Rook tried to speak up, but the Decepticon wasn’t done. “What the hell is that claw for, huh? Dragging _corpses_ out of battlefields? ‘Retrieval expert and tactical advisor.’ That’s what you said. How the scrap did you do that without ever _retrieving_ anyone or _advising_ on anything?!”

His servos shaking, Rook attempted to force himself to speak. “That wasn’t... exactly true.” His voice was barely audible, and came out sounding like his vocal processor had been crushed in half. Suddenly finding himself weak in the legs, he spotted a large, flat stone nearby, wedged up against the sheer face of the mountain. Staggering over, he collapsed onto the rock in a sitting position.

Taking a moment to refocus his internal functions, Rook became aware that Blast Off had paused his walk as well, and was now standing over him, his frame blocking out the dim glare from the Ardenian sun.

“I wasn’t… actually assigned to the Protectobots,” Rook managed to get out. “I was supposed to be. That’s… why we were constructed. Alpha and me. We were… replacements.”

Blast Off took a seat on the rock next to him, but said nothing.

“Like I said, it was late in the war,” Rook went on. The more he spoke, the easier it became to keep speaking. “Computron was already gone. The ‘Cons had lost Abominus and Predaking. Combiners were some of the most valuable assets either side had, and High Command became very concerned about ensuring we were able to keep ours. I think they had some idea for turning the Dinobots into a combiner, but if that was true, they were never able to actually make it happen. So… we were the next best thing. Replacement combiner parts… just in case something happened to Groove, or Firefly, or any of them. Losing one soldier wouldn’t mean losing the entire team.”

It almost seemed as if Blast Off was about to say something, but Rook didn’t hear a word, so he kept going. It almost felt relieving to be able to explain, at this point. “So, yeah, I got top marks at the Academy, for all the good it did me.” He shrugged. “Slingshot got taken out on Temptoria a few decacycles later. Alpha’s training wasn’t even done yet, but he was getting exemplary scores on everything—he was even better than I was, in some areas. So they deployed him right away. And he became an Aerialbot, just like that. He became… Superion, I guess.”

“And you didn’t?” Blast Off asked. “Join the Protectobots, I mean. Defensor.”

Rook sighed. “They never asked. They didn’t need me. None of them were killed. Why use a replacement when you have all the originals, right?” He stared out across the barren landscape. “So I just stayed at the Academy. And then one solar cycle it turned out the war was over, and we’d won. All without me ever getting a gun in my hand.”

Blast Off spoke up again. “So you weren’t—”

“I got left behind,” Rook interrupted, his gaze hardening. “I was made to be a tactical specialist, and I never fought a single battle. They didn’t need me, so they just forgot all about me. What a _waste_.” He clenched his hands, hearing the groans of his finger motors as they strained against each other. Still without looking at the bot sitting next to him, he added, “I’m sorry about everything I said earlier. About… you know. The war, and what you did, and… all of it. I… I guess I was jealous. Not about you being a Decepticon, but… getting _out_ there. You were part of a _team_ , you were part of a _combiner_ …” He pounded one fist on the rock. “Once I knew all that, it just… made me think of what I missed out on. It’s pathetic, I know. Slagging _petty_ of me. It wasn’t your fault I was… thrown away.”

His piece said, Rook depowered his optics, ashamed of what he’d admitted and unable to bear the thought of seeing Blast Off’s expression.

“When I was part of the Combaticons,” the other bot’s voice came, “I wasn’t just part of a team. I was… they were my family. I know you probably wouldn’t expect that, not from a bunch of protoform-slaughtering, axe-banging Decepticons, but… I think it’s universal. When you rely on the same people to get you through life-or-death situations more times than you can count, when you know that they’d trust you to shoot them dead-center in the torso if you thought it was the right call to make… it’s impossible not to grow close to them. Even if you think you hate them, or they annoy you, or you’re only there because Megatron thought you’d be good at killing people together… you get to know them on an intrinsic level that’s only possible when you’ve been through hell with one another.”

“And, yeah, being part of a combiner helps too. Everyone knows your secrets, your fears, your greatest hopes… You could say we were always Bruticus, even when we weren’t combined. It was like we had started to act as one purely by instinct, without the physical connection needing to be there.”

Rook had by now reactivated his optics, but his face was still turned away from his companion. Blast Off seemed to struggle to get his next words out. “And, at some point… well, you wouldn’t really expect it to happen in a war. Definitely not when you’re part of the slagging Combaticons. But… somehow, it did. I respected all my teammates. I… I explained that. But with Onslaught, it was more than respect. I admired him. I admired his strategic ability, his ruthlessness, his… I don’t know. His _machismo_ , or something. So—I can’t remember exactly when, or where, or really _why_ , but—” He broke off abruptly, grimacing, then seemed to gather himself again. “I fell in love with him. Like a slagging idiot.”

Startled, Rook actually glanced over in Blast Off’s direction despite himself. “You—you were, like—”

“Yeah. I thought I could be his goddamn Conjunx Endura.” Now it was the Decepticon’s hands that were clenched, the right one seeming to be unconsciously reaching backwards for his blaster. “I wasn’t imagining things. I swear to Primus, I _wasn’t_ making it up. We worked great together. Not just... not just killing Autobots, I swear. Just… we _clicked_. Every plan, every spur-of-the-moment idea… we _understood_ each other. He was the leader, and I… I was the only one of us who wasn’t too busy blowing things up, or laughing his skidplate off over whatever hapless Autobot we’d just done in, or trying to sell the access codes to the goddamn headquarters… to actually _listen_ to him.”

Suddenly feeling that he should _do_ something, Rook adjusted himself so that he was more properly facing the other bot. For… some reason. “Did… did you tell him?”

“Of course not,” Blast Off scoffed. “Combaticons, remember? That kind of scrap wasn’t supposed to happen. We didn’t _care_ about each other. We just slagged Autobots.” He shook his head. “So I just… kept shooting Autobots, right next to him. And right next to Brawl, and Vortex, and Swindle. And I thought maybe, eventually, he just… would notice.”

“Did he?” asked Rook, knowing what the answer would be.

But Blast Off didn’t answer. At least, not at first. “It was Starscream’s idea, I think. Back when he was leader for, like, three cycles. He told Onslaught I wasn’t contributing to the team as much as I could be. My alt-mode didn’t make sense. The longer the war went on, the more both sides lost most of their biggest fleets, and the more planetside combat became the deciding factor. A space shuttle was ‘inefficient’. He said I would have more fun when I could maneuver in an atmosphere more easily. And I’d be able to participate in group tactics more often. And Onslaught, the spawn of a glitch, agreed with him.” He gestured up and down his chassis. “One quick trip to Shockwave, and hey presto, I became Take Off.” Muttering, he added, “That’s what Brawl called it.”

“And… you didn’t like that?” Rook asked, not sure what was so bad for a flier about having to switch from one flight-worthy alt-mode to another.

“The alt-mode wasn’t the problem,” Blast Off said, dejected. “It was how he did it.”

“Who? Shockwave?”

“Onslaught!” the Decepticon exclaimed. “He told me… he said _he_ would appreciate it if I were more able to help out the rest of the team. I didn’t find out it was Starscream’s orders until later. He made it sound… dammit, I can’t describe it. I thought… I thought he had noticed.” His eyes seemed to glow brighter. “I think he _did_ notice. No, that’s a lie, I _know_ he did. He knew what was going on, and he used it to make me do what he wanted.” Blast Off’s voice oozed with disgust, though Rook couldn’t tell for whom exactly. “All that time, he knew exactly how I felt about him, and the only thing he cared about was how he could turn that to his advantage. And you know what’s funny? That was exactly the kind of stone-cold strategic maneuvering I admired him for.”

“I’m sorry.” Rook wasn’t sure what else he could say. He hadn’t even known Decepticons did the whole Conjunx business.

Blast Off looked away. “It’s… well, it’s not fine. I don’t think I’m really over it. But… before, when I talked about seeing people for who they really were? Onslaught was, you know, obviously part of that. I know that doesn’t really matter—I was in love, big deal, I still should’ve seen the massacres and everything else for what they really were a long time before that. I’m not trying to make excuses.”

“It’s okay.” Rook found that he couldn’t keep looking at the Decepticon either. “You don’t have to justify yourself to me again. I didn’t—I shouldn’t have given you such a hard time earlier. I didn’t know anything about—about any of this. Everything you did, that’s… that’s not my business. It’s in the past.”

“No.” Blast Off’s voice took on a sudden hard tone, as if he’d gained some measure of certainty. “It’s not, Rook. Not for me. Every charred faceplate, every bullet hole, every set of lifeless optics. They’re all a part of me. For good. And it doesn’t matter why I did them, or what I believed in, or who I thought I loved. They’re all mine to own.” He reached out his right arm, and Rook realized that at some point, seemingly without any conscious decision involved, the two of them had turned back to face each other again.

The Decepticon’s arm landed on Rook’s left shoulder, its fingers curling into a firm grip on the shredded, torn metal shell. “That’s what matters here, Rook. It’s too late for me to go back and change anything—the battles, or the mistakes, or the hopeless romance. But you don’t have anything to change.”

“You weren’t wasted, Rook. You were spared.”

 

* * *

 

 

They were a good megacycle beyond the final mountain range and, Blast Off swore, only one or two more out from the camp. The local terrain was considerably less choppy than it had been in the area where they had run into the quake worm. There was nothing left to do but walk.

They walked on for another dozen kliks or so. They walked without any kind of weariness or exuberance, only an idle determination to finally reach the end of their trek. They walked through every twisted wire and dented plating they had left. They walked until, finally, the camp itself could just barely be made out across the rust-colored plain.

And that, of course, was when the earth directly behind the two bots erupted in a spray of dust. An enormous mass of bone and muscle pushed its way out of the cavity, climbing into the sky with a triumphant _GARAAHHH!!_

“Oh, Primus,” whispered Rook. It was another quake worm, seemingly a bit smaller than the first one they’d encountered, not that that would make much of a difference. Rook turned to Blast Off, his optics flashing with fear. “Should we try to reach the camp? Do they have anything that could—?”

The Decepticon nodded. “Run. There’s no way I’ll be able to blast this one in the exact same spot.” As the worm dove toward them, its maw stretched wide, the two Cybertronians sprinted towards the settlement in the distance, pushing their damaged and travel-weary frames as hard as they could.

They kept running as the quake worm pursued them, re-emerging from the sands every few nanocycles and lunging towards them in another deadly strike. Rook knew they wouldn’t be able to keep up this dance for longer than a few cycles, but by his calculations, that was all the time they would need. Even as the worm gained ground, the mining camp was looming larger and larger on the horizon. The two bots would reach safety before the worm managed to land the decisive blow, and whatever defenses the camp had in place would prevent it from coming any closer.

But then, as if Primus had heard their prayers and decided that they didn’t appreciate how much worse the situation could get, the ground a few hics ahead began to rupture. Jerkily halting their sprint, the two bots stared in horror at the crumbling surface, unwilling to accept what was inevitably going to emerge from it—what _did_ emerge from it, just a couple nanocycles later: a second quake worm, firmly rooted between the Cybertronians and their safe haven.

Rook stared up at the new arrival, noting almost without any feeling at all that the first worm had darted off to the side, snaking around the bots’ left toward its fellow. The second worm responded in kind by diving to the right. Faster than Rook would have thought possible, the two beasts had completely encircled them, interlinking their bodies over and under each other in a clockwise chain, so that it was impossible to tell which worm was which. Only the creatures’ heads stuck up above the twisting masses that now formed an enclosing wall several hics high.

A deep sense of calm settled over Rook. That was it, then. There was no way out. There wouldn’t be any lucky shots into a vital nerve this time—even if Blast Off managed to take out one of the worms that way, the other would still get them. There was no time left to come up with some alternate plan, even if they had any other resources. The worms had _already_ surrounded them. It was over.

He glanced over at Blast Off, pondering how best to explain this. But the moment he opened his mouth, the Decepticon’s wary expression changed to an intense glare.

“Don’t. Don’t even try to tell me that—”

“What?!” Rook exclaimed. “Don’t try to tell you what? You didn’t even let me speak!”

“You don’t have to,” Blast Off ground out. “I can see it in your optics. You _gave up_ already. _Again_.” He glanced up, still anxious. One of the worms had raised its head above the other, and appeared to be preparing for a finishing thrust.

“I didn’t give up!” Rook was struggling to keep his calm. “I just accepted the situation! There’s _no way_ out of this. I’ve done the calculations. _Nothing_ we do is making those worms let us out.”

Blast Off’s gaze softened. “That’s your problem, Rook. You’re trained to get everyone out safely. If there were a way out for both of us, you’d find it. But that’s not always possible.” Suddenly tensing, he grabbed at something behind his torso with his right arm.

Nervously watching the ascent of the worm’s head above them, Rook sent Primus a silent prayer not to judge the Decepticon too harshly for his actions during the war. No matter what Blast Off was planning to do with his blaster, it was futile. In mere nanocycles, they’d be on their way to the AllSpark. All he could do was hope Blast Off was treated fairly when they got there.

An earsplitting scraping sound interrupted his moment of tranquility. Whipping his head back around towards Blast Off, Rook was horrified to see that his companion hadn’t been prepping his blaster at all—instead, an agonized grimace on his face, the other bot now held his own dismembered wing in his right hand.

“What the _hell_ —” Rook started, aghast.

“MOVE!” Blast Off interrupted.

Glancing up just in time, Rook realized that the quake worm had plunged down towards them at breakneck speed. He dove to the right just in time, narrowly dodging the worm’s attack. Getting back to his feet, he tried to peer through the cloud of dust raised by the worm’s impact, looking for any sign that Blast Off had dodged in the opposite direction.

The Decepticon was nowhere in sight, only the worm’s spiked body, now tunnelling deep into the sand.

And then, before Rook could even fully process that Blast Off was gone, he was back.

_VHOOM!_ The worm rose out of the earth once again—not with the charging focus that it had every time before, but spastically, thrashing in every direction, as if it was trying to shake something off. Its jaws were stretched open, unable to close due to the object now wedged lengthwise between them—Blast Off’s wing. The Decepticon himself was hanging onto his removed component, swinging back and forth from just inside the worm’s mouth to open air as the creature wriggled back and forth. His chassis was dented in several places and uniformly caked in dirt from his brief trip underground.

“What—in Primus’s—GET DOWN!” Rook yelled, his hands balled into fists as he cast vainly about for some way to help the situation. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?!”

“Occupying it!” shouted Blast Off, fighting to keep his grip on the badly damaged jet wing. “It can’t focus on two targets at once! You need to get out of here as soon as you see an opening!”

Before Rook could exclaim “ _What_ opening?”, his attention was drawn to the worm-made barricade—now coming rapidly undone. The worm holding Blast Off in its mouth, in its frenzy, had become disentangled from the interwoven chain it had made with the second worm, and the helical wall was beginning to loosen in several places. Its partner, realizing that one of the prey was completely exposed, had forgotten all about containment as well, and had dived straight at the space in the sky where Blast Off hung from the first worm’s jaws. Of course, with all of that worm’s frenetic movements, the second one had missed the mark entirely, its jaws meeting only empty air. The barrier was now more or less completely abolished, only a few random segments of worm remaining where once there had been a unified blockade.

None of this changed Rook’s mind on anything. “Great! You distracted them! Now let go of that thing and _get down here!_ ”

“It won’t work!” Blast Off shouted back. “If I drop, they’ll just chase us again! There’s no other way to keep them busy long enough for you to make it to the camp!”

“Then I’m coming back with a worm-killing squad!” There was no way he was going to accept this. Not a chance.

Blast Off smiled sadly. “They don’t _have_ anything that can kill a quake worm. There’s a sonic barrier around the camp that they can’t stand tunnelling through. That’s the only thing keeping them out. You get inside that perimeter and you _stay_ inside it, got that?”

“No!” Rook screamed. “You’re coming with me!”

The Decepticon’s face hardened. “I told you already, Rook. It’s too late for me.” He grunted as the second worm made another pass at him, colliding with the first worm as it did so. “Even if you saved me from the worms, you’d be too late to save me from myself. And I’m too late to save everyone else. This isn’t just about you. I’m doing this for Evac. For Crosscut. For Slingshot! If you don’t make it through this, you’re letting _all_ of them down. So _get out of here!_ ” He smiled again. “Don’t worry. I won’t miss you, either.”

Rook stared up at Blast Off for an endless nanocycle. Then, slowly, he nodded and ran off, ducking under the second quake worm. And then he was free. Out of the trap. There was nothing standing between him and the camp.

 

 

For as long as he could manage, Blast Off kept his gaze fixed on Rook’s retreating figure, a speck of white against the reddish-brown plain. Silently, he sent his companion a message of thanks for everything that had happened in the last several solar cycles.

Then the image was gone. The quake worm had done a good _yank_ in the upwards direction, and Blast Off had found himself flung upward violently, barely managing to maintain his grip on the wing.

And then the shaking stopped.

Reorienting himself, Blast Off realized that the worm whose jaws he’d trapped was now angled straight up, its mouth open directly to the sky. Blast Off was hanging right over its mouth. If he fell, he’d fall straight into the pit. Off to the left, the second worm had just poked its head above the ground again, and appeared to be preparing for another lunge.

They were working together. The first worm had finally realized that it had to hold him still in order for the second one to strike him.

How did that even make sense? Didn’t the first worm realize that the second one would devour him, robbing it of any chance at the meal? Did they have some kind of intravenous nutrient-sharing system?

He stopped trying to distract himself from his rapidly-approaching fate. One way or another, one of the quake worms was going to swallow him. He would be dead in nanocycles.

But Rook would survive.

It wouldn’t change a single thing about his life. It wouldn’t bring back Crosscut, or Slingshot, or any of the other Autobots he’d killed during the war. It wouldn’t change his view of himself. It wouldn’t change a damn thing about Onslaught.

But Rook would survive, and that was something that mattered. It was something he could be proud of.

The worm reared up, just a nanocycle away from launching its final strike.

Blast Off shut down his eyes.

Something cold, tight, and sharp tugged at his ankle, and then the wind was roaring in his audio processors as he was pulled sharply through the open air faster than he’d ever seen a quake worm move.

His eyes flickered online again, but before he could get a glimpse of what had happened, Blast Off collided with a bulky, metallic object. Hard.

He blinked, just to be sure he wasn’t hallucinating in the moments before his death.

He was lying on his front, on top of a large, white, six-wheeled vehicle, which was now tearing across the terrain as fast as it could. Disappearing into a sliding panel in its surface was a chain-connected grasping claw.

It was Rook’s alt-mode.

“Are you insane?!” Blast Off yelled.

The voice that issued out of the vehicle sounded like it was trying not to laugh. “You’re welcome.”

There were a thousand different things Blast Off wanted to scream at the other bot, but before he could pick one, he felt a slight high-pitched whine in his audio receptors for just a moment. They had passed through the sonic barrier.

Rook’s breakneck drive abruptly halted, and the vehicle gave a shudder, as if the Autobot had been holding himself together _just_ long enough to make it past the safe line. Blast Off felt himself unceremoniously dumped onto the ground as the white transport converted back into Rook’s robot mode, making several piercing, scraping noises as it did so.

Blast Off picked himself up and walked over to where Rook lay on the ground. The Autobot’s chassis was cracked and mangled all over, and a few of his joints were sparking. Rook glanced up at him, smiling.

“You _idiot!_ ” Blast Off raged, unable to believe what he’d just seen. “You complete moron! You slag-headed, waste-scraping, utterly short-circuited bastard!”

The other bot’s expression didn’t waver an inch. “Yep. Transforming to vehicle mode when I was that badly damaged? It’s a wonder I’m—”

“You! Could’ve! Gotten! Yourself! Killed!” screamed Blast Off.

Now Rook’s smile vanished. “That’s what _you_ nearly did.”

Of all the—”I was doing that to _save you_ , you piece of scrap! What the hell were you _thinking?!_ ”

Rook’s optics bore straight into Blast Off’s own. “I wasn’t going to let you throw yourself away like that. I’m not worth that, and neither are any of those other bots you mentioned.” He didn’t seem the least bit bothered by the severe damage to his body. “You don’t get to do one sacrificial thing and think that makes up for it all. You want to do something for them, in their memory? You don’t die like that. You _live_ better. Every cycle, every solar cycle, every stellar cycle for the rest of your life. You make sure the Combaticons aren’t the only thing you’re remembered for.”

Nearby, Blast Off dimly sensed the other Decepticon inhabitants of Ardenia emerging from their encampments as they spotted the new arrivals. Some had procured repair kits, and were already rummaging through them, looking for the spark stabilizers that would keep Rook’s condition from worsening.

Blast Off stared down at his friend, his head buzzing. “I… I can’t. That’s too much. I don’t even know where to start.”

“I know,” Rook said, getting to his feet with a wince. He reached out with his injured left hand, grabbing Blast Off’s right. Startled, Blast Off jerked back for the briefest moment.

Then he stopped, relaxing as he heard Rook speak again. The Autobot’s words were steady, calming. “That’s why I’m not letting you do it alone.”

 

 

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> I was given the basic idea for this—a story about Rook and Blast Off—by a friend who suggested it based on how the other two "replacement" combiner team members, Alpha Bravo and Offroad, had already received an official story about the two of them by Fun Publications.
> 
> The entire setting is, of course, inspired by every "mortal enemies stranded together" story I'd ever seen growing up. It's Zeb and Kallus on the ice moon. It's Rampage and Transmutate. More than any of the others, really, this story drew a lot of inspiration from Ben and the Highbreed on the desert world in Ben 10: Alien Force. Ironically, I had completely forgotten that that episode also used giant tunnelling worms as an enemy; it wasn't until after I finished writing this and watched that episode again that I realized I had inadvertently used a very similar creature in my own story.
> 
> The quake worms themselves are mostly designed with the Bakugan Wormquake in mind, specifically the Subterra-attributed variant. That's where they get their name from, of course.
> 
> A lot of those "enemies stranded" stories tend to be named Alone Together. But they often end with the two foes parting ways and gaining a new respect for each other, rather than actually continuing on together. So, obviously, my story wasn't about them being Alone Together—it was them being Together Alone.
> 
> A bunch of random plot elements from IDW comics were used to create background in this story, but often not with the exact same details. For example, Blast Off mentions that Soundwave helped Optimus Prime kill Galvatron, as happened in John Barber's Robots in Disguise series, but he also says that Galvatron used to be Megatron, which isn't the case in IDW. And, of course, the entire history Blast Off and Onslaught have is drawn from Mairghread Scott's Till All Are One, but without the mind control that made that story infamous. Rewriting and "fixing" the Blast Off/Onslaught affair was another goal of mine in making this story.
> 
> Feedback or comments of any kind are greatly appreciated :)


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